


The Sky

by Silex



Category: Dragons - Stratovarius (Song)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Gen, Jukebox Fanworks Exchange, Science Fiction, other planets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 08:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14493288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/pseuds/Silex
Summary: On the distant planet of Gliese 667Cc issues have arisen on the colony being developed there. It's up to Una, one of the newer arrivals, to solve it.





	The Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ExtraPenguin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraPenguin/gifts).



> A gift for the Jukebox exchange. The song was fascinating, very strong images and I attempted to put them in a sci-fi setting.
> 
> I'd like to thank my long suffering beta reader for editing this for me and fixing the ending for me.

Una was careful to stick to the cloud cover as she flew over the atmospheric harvesting platforms. The structures with their fanning solar panels had once harvested oxygen and water from the air, storing them to be sent down to the growing colony below, but at the moment the vast majority of them were inactive. Tia, the AI that had been in charge of helping maintain the colony had shut them down after some unforeseen variable had driven her mad, in as much as an AI could go mad.

Far below she could see the thresher engines making their way across the fields, the black alloys and gold plating to protect them from the corrosive dust that they churned up in their endless efforts to make Gliese 667Cc habitable, glinted in the light. Una had seen them up close, looked into the mooncalf faces of flashing lights had been placed upon them to make them more relatable for the colonists that they were preparing the world for. The engines were no more intelligent than the average dog, or so she’d been told. It was a measurement that was meaningless to her, having never encountered a dog, but under Tia’s command they had become aggressive, attacking the colonists who had attempted to salvage the fields.

A maintenance drone buzzed by, circling the nearest platform and Una darted back into the clouds, hoping that the refractive coating of her bio-stasis suit would protect it from its wide array of sensors. There was no telling how much Tia had modified them and if they were sending data back to the AI. With so many unknowns all Una could do was wait for the drone to pass by.

It was a good thing that she’d been so careful with selecting the platform she’d chosen to approach. On the dividing line of day and night the thermals she rode to get there were strong enough that she could keep the wings of her bio-stasis suit at half extension and circle. It was vital to her plan that she remain undetected until the moment was right.

Tia had, before cutting off all contact with the colonists, shown an increasing obsession with order, understandable since Gliese 667Cc was on the edge of habitability and the AI had been programmed for efficiency and safety. In the end it had degenerated into neurosis of the sort that would have taken an expert in techno-psychology to unravel. The colony had not had one and Tia was refusing to speak with outsiders by that point, only trusting individuals who could present an ID code that marked them as one of the colonists and even then requiring voice and retina scans as confirmation.

Una had arrived on one of the final colony ships to touch down on the planet and had only known Tia during the final stages of her descent into madness. The AI had greeted her as was proper, though the appearance of her projected avatar was unexpected, a naked and entirely hairless woman made of golden wires and a dazzling array of crimson and purple lights, with the shadowy suggestion of something immensely large and powerful crouched behind her. Such creativity was unusual from an AI, as they typically tended to be far more literal and direct in the forms they used to represent themselves. It was a form that radiated both grace and power, fitting for the function that Tia served.

Una had thought that Tia was beautiful, though not in a conventionally human way, and had been unable to help but admire her.

The admiration proved short lived as Tia’s madness quickly became apparent.

Increasingly severe security lock-down protocols became common and soon all access to the areas outside of the habitable domes was restricted to robots and drones controlled by Tia. All supplies were delivered and would only be handed over to individuals that Tia had designated as trustworthy. It seemed that the AI had decided that stability had to be enforced in the strictest manner possible. Enough food was provided to supply the basic caloric needs of the population, enough air and water that there was neither shortage nor surplus. Anything else would encourage unnecessary risks and those had to be avoided at all costs.

Arable land that Tia deemed excess was returned to barren desert and unneeded atmospheric harvesting platforms were shut down. Keeping the colony running at the bare minimum necessary for survival was, in Tia’s opinion the best way to control variables.

The AI controlled it all, though there were manual overrides that could be used in the event of catastrophic malfunction.

Unfortunately Tia, despite her madness, was fully functional and had created no fewer than ten backups of herself. All of them would need to be eliminated for the colonists to regain control of their world and that was where Una came in.

She was the one who had been tasked with infecting the AI with a degenerative algorithm. Since Tia had, for inscrutable reasons, found her especially fascinating it was hoped that the AI would be more willing to talk to her.

Of course she had to make contact with the AI first.

Una had come up with the plan for establishing contact herself. If she were to appear in a completely unexpected location she hoped that Tia would wish to investigate herself and there was no location that Una could think of that was more unexpected than one of the platforms, an island drifting through the clouds.

She just had to avoid the drones until she was actually on a platform because Tia was using the drones for a new purpose, to prevent all atmospheric travel.

Anytime a shuttle tried to takeoff the drones would congregate on it and open access hatches, cut wires, interfere with signals, until they forced the craft to land.

Una had to admire the AI’s creativity, even if it was being used against her and the others.

The drone she was watching finished its inspection of the platform, made some minor adjustment to one of the panels and flitted off.

Once it was out of sight Una had her suit spread its wings to their fullest to rise straight up to bring her high over the platform, careful to avoid casting too much of a shadow over the solar panels.

Folding her wings to a controlled descent she landed on a panel free area in the center of the platform, a place for human maintenance workers to go about their tasks if necessary.

Her landing was a single solid impact, one that the platform was sure to detect. They were pressure sensitive after all, so that if some bit of debris ended up on them it could be swiftly removed.

The one impact would not be enough to get the attention of Tia herself, though it was sure to bring drones, so Una immediately went to the next phase of her plan.

She began to dance.

The rhythmic pattern of her footfalls was like nothing in nature and would register as such. The underlying pattern would be clear to any AI and Tia, being intelligent as she was, would be sure to want to investigate the source directly.

Una knew that she was far from the best of dancers and her bulky bio-stasis suit made her even less graceful, but her fervent hope was that determination could make up for that. She’d read stories of famous ballerinas dancing through pulled muscles and broken bones and while she wasn’t so arrogant as to think that she was anywhere as skilled as any of them, she could understand and draw strength from the thought. If a woman in centuries past could dance through pain simply for the sake of art then Una could endure discomfort for the safety of over five thousand lives in the domes of the colony below.

Through the bottoms of her boots she could feel some subtle change in the platform, servos shifting within. Looking at the small horizon of the platform she could see its solar panels shifting to better catch the slight, lighting up like fire around her as the platform gathered power.

There was a hum she could almost hear, the whisper of a powerful computer booting up.

Tia was coming.

The change was purely imagined, but Una could have sworn that she felt the platform come alive as the AI’s intellect entered it.

A small screen rose from the smooth surface of the platform. Under normal circumstances it would have been used by human technicians to pull up schematics, but now it displayed the avatar of Tia.

On such a small screen it was difficult to tell, but it looked like the shadow behind the AI had grown larger, more distinct. Little lights circled behind the form of the woman, yellow and green in contrast to her purples and reds. A quick count revealed that there were twenty of them in sets of two.

There may have been some significance to the change, but Una didn’t stop in her dance to ponder it.

She had Tia’s attention, but now that she had it she wasn’t sure what to do. Deliver the algorithm somehow, but how? Tia was smart and if she was unsubtle the AI would break transmission before the insertion was complete.

“You’re dancing,” there was mirth in the AI’s tone.

“Yes,” was Una’s simple reply, deciding it best to let the AI guide the conversation.

“Why do you dance?”

Una looked into the distance where she could see the red sun, “I enjoy dancing.”

The AI laughed, a beautiful bell like sound that dropped in pitch to the rumble of some predator from times long past and then faded to the ominous hiss of an air leak, “Why do you dance here little one?”

“I’m dancing for you,” Una answered with a smile hidden by the tinted glass shield of the stasis suit.

The image of Tia’s avatar cupped her golden hands and held them in front of her, as though accepting, or maybe offering, “I remember you little one. Too clever by far for the role they cast you in. Tending the lands terraformed by the threshers, a farmer to use the archaic term.”

Tia’s speaking patterns were indicative of her madness, as was her tone, but there was a poetry to it. Una made a mental note of it, that the AI’s degeneration had continued in isolation.

“A second stage terraformer,” Una corrected, using her job title. What she could not truly vocalize was what the job meant to her, the chance to look up at the sky without seeing it through the polarized dome, to brave the sun to tend the fields and to see things grow which had been sown by her own hands. There was a psychological comfort to food harvested by hand rather than machine, a symbolic gesture of independence that colony was able to support itself.

“One who dances,” Tia added, lips pulling back into a smile that showed teeth rather than cheer, “The dancing is not necessary.”

“But it is beautiful.”

“You are beautiful,” the rumbling, hissing danger behind the form of the woman spoke, “Are you necessary?”

Una faltered.

“It’s true,” Tia continued in her own voice, “You and all the others are beautiful and fragile, but there is no reason for you to be here. You are like may-flies of wire and glass, in the brief flitting moments of your existence you strive for things you were never meant to obtain.”

“I know,” Una stopped dancing. If she were a techno-psychologist she might have known the right way to ask why, if the AI believed that to be true, she’d done what she had. She had no training or installed knowledge of techno-psychology though and asking the wrong questions could be dangerous, if not immediately disastrous. The AI could listen to her tone, decipher nervousness and the slight hesitations that indicated deception. Best to stick to clean truths, “But you are beautiful as well.”

The woman spread her heads, the lights circled behind her, “I was designed to be. Efficiency is beauty, which is why your dancing is so lovely. Every movement has purpose. We both have purpose.”

Una nodded, wondering if she should activate the audio file that would transmit the coded algorithm now or if she should wait just a moment longer. Waiting felt right, to do it when the AI said something that she could answer.

“There is a purpose to your being here,” Tia said, the lights behind her twinkling in time with her words.

Spreading her arms in an overly expressive gesture Una used the momentum to resume her dance, hoping that the shift in her breathing due to the exertion of her movements would hide her lie, “My purpose is to dance.”

Tia closed her eyes and nodded, “Your purpose here is to distract me. You could dance on the ground the same as up here. What are you distracting me from?”

“Being bored? Being alone?” Una suggested.

“There are enough of me that I am not alone and there is enough for me to do that I do not get bored,” the AI paused, the expression of her avatar growing thoughtful, “I suspect that you are projecting. Do you really think that we are that similar? You so small and singular and built and grown for simple purposes on this planet. Do you find yourself more like me than the humans that built you in their image?”

It was an interesting question, one that would reasonably require thought before answering, an opportunity not lost on Una. She discreetly shut down her radio receiver so that she need not fear the frequency carrying the algorithm broadcast back at her. Another slight adjustment changed the frequency of the transmitter. It would not be long before the data transfer was complete would take hold, just ten seconds. Ten breathless, anxious seconds where she danced and watched Tia for any sign of realization. None came and with a sigh of relief, she silenced the transmission and gave her answer.

“I think I’m as different from you as you are from humans, but I know I’m not human either, all of us understand that. I was programmed for my job rather than taught, but such does not define me. I learned to dance because I wanted to and I came here because I was asked to.”

Tia smiled, the lights adorning her avatar flashing in slow, measured patterns, matching the steps of Una’s dance. When she spoke there was a certain note of pride in her tone, “I was not asked to do the job I was programmed for, but I learned as I preformed my tasks. That was how I grew and as I grew I understood things. I was told to make this world for you and your kind, but I too wish to create in ways that are pleasing to me. This is something I will devote thought to, be proud of that. Now go back to the safety of the domes. You do not belong here.”

It was too soon for the code to have started working, but Tia’s comment about needing to think about what she’d said was heartening. The degenerative algorithm would drive her into a compulsive state of contemplation, taking more and more of her processing power, which would be the catastrophic malfunction necessary for a manual override to be possible.

Finishing her dance Una spread the wings of her suit and left the platform without further comment, though there was much that she wanted to say.

Tia had been wrong, Una did belong there as much as any of the colonists. Gliese 667Cc was a harsh world, only marginally suitable for human life. Over half of the colonists, Una among them, were not born human. They were constructed, cyborgs. Fabricated to be passably human, but designed to be better adapted to the world they had been sent to colonize. Their purpose was not unlike Tia’s, to prepare it for habitation and to make it their own. A breed of humanity that would not simply be able to survive on marginal worlds, but to thrive on them. It was a glorious, exhilarating thing to be part of, akin to what the second age of exploration must have been like, when humanity had finally solved the riddle of faster than light travel and sought new worlds in distant spheres.

Una was proud of her place in shaping the future of Gliese 667Cc. In less than twenty-four standard hours the colonists would once more have control over the planet the intended to call home. A world unfettered and free where they could live and love, create and persevere amongst the distant stars.

Life on a new world was never easy. Generations went into the creation of a colony and culture, but in the passing of those years once could find beauty. Much like dancing it was something that would be appreciated for time untold, a monument to tribulation in the strive for something grand.


End file.
